01 October 2016
With new automation in the production, KK Wind Solutions has taken the first steps into Industry 4.0 also known as the fourth industrial revolution.
The wind industry is constantly being pressured to provide energy at reduced prices. Thus, increased demands at reduced margins require everyone in the game to stay sharp.
KK Wind Solutions’ first robotic manufacturing facility, installed before summer 2016 in Szczcecin, Poland, is part of a strategy of staying ahead of the game by ensuring both high quality and high traceability at competitive prices. The robot line will be used to manufacture electrical panels for wind turbines and the next phase of a robot line is already underway with the newest technology for combined man-machine cooperation. All with the aim of continued innovation within lean manufacturing for costs to be reduced and for all partners involved in the production process to access latest data at any time and from anywhere.
Creating customer convenience
Not only will the introduction of automation to the workflow bring down the need for manual work and enable higher output and increased quality, - industry 4.0 will also result in new ways of cooperating in the entire value chain with increased value creation for customers. With industry 4.0 technology, KK Wind Solutions furthermore aims at turning big data into smart information for the benefit of the customers.
“We are looking at the markets and how to structure the market information – 80% of which is unstructured data so far. Our ambition is to crunch this huge amount of data into something intelligent that we can apply in our daily work. Moreover, we have an ambition to invent intelligent and smart solutions which are able to perform self-monitoring action – thus enabling a much higher degree of predictive maintenance for higher reliability. We also want our customers to be able to go online and check which phase the ordered product is in – from sourcing, to production to delivery - just like we know it from online ordering of BtC products. More transparency. Simple as that,” says Thomas R. Olsen, Head of Global Supply Chain
Industry 4.0 means acceleration
In the very near future, the industry 4.0 will also become part of the design workflow at KK Wind Solutions.
“Basically, when customers send us a parts list, we will be able to import the information into software, which very quickly transforms the data to something we can use for our design thus it will shorten the design phase considerably,” Thomas R. Olsen says.
Even though KK is working on a three-year plan, this is not a process that will eventually stop.
“Industry 4.0 – the new industrial revolution creates new business models based on disruption. It is a very natural development, but it involves a transformation dilemma. Things move so fast that people have a hard time adapting to the new methods. However, if we do not take the lead, someone else will,” Thomas R. Olsen says.
Image: KK Industry 4.0 relies on five important initiatives
Ready for Industry 4.0 revolution
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